Showing results by narrator "J. A." in All Categories

In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) - then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.

Results from Dr. Fred Luskin's Stanford University Forgiveness Project, one of the largest and most important studies on forgiveness ever conducted, show that learning how to forgive improves our emotional and physical well-being. Holding onto resentment or hurt disrupts our personal and professional lives, leads to bad decision-making, and releases stress chemicals that can have a negative effect on our health. Yet all too many of us clutch our grievances and give away our power by remaining victims of the people who have hurt us.

I never expected to get a crafting class, nor did I expect to get expelled from my family because of it. But I won't let that stop me from growing stronger and proving to my father that despite only being able to craft that doesn't mean I'm worthless. Setting out for the Wilds, the untamed lands of the world, I promised myself that I would become a settler and flourish in the danger and fight for survival. It may sound hard, but as a Master of Crafts, I have all the professions and tools I need to build myself a homestead and survive against all odds.

When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man's experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today's students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.

Conrad Strauss is the owner of Grazing Acres Ranch, home to some of the sharpest bucking bulls around. As Copper Lake's only veterinarian in our small town, I have to see him more than I'd like. It hasn't always been easy, but it's become manageable. Until, of course, the night my need for him burned too hot to ignore. The night I let my walls down and allowed myself to soak in his comfort and strong arms once more. If that wasn't bad enough, now his Nana is coming to visit, and she doesn't know we're divorced.

After a tragic accident ends Samson's life, he's given a second chance by Aki, the grim reaper in a tracksuit. Aki, a fellow fan of Samson's favorite light novel series, My Royal Academia, offers to help him, but only if he agrees to one condition: save the story from its hiatus.

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. An AI awakens to its purpose. A researcher seeds a thousand new worlds for one more chance at love. A murder rocks the crew of an interstellar ship. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy . . . and the horizons of humanity’s potential.

Fire chief and werewolf Titus Merrow has a pretty good life. Great family, great job, great friends. No love interest, sure, but he’s got too much going on to worry about that. Like the 10K race for charity that he’s helping to plan. Too bad the woman he’s planning it with is so hot. No, wait. He meant annoying.

I don't ask for much from life; I get paid, and then I get laid. And piloting spaceships across the galaxy keeps my solo lifestyle well-funded. I don't need a relationship or any of the baggage that comes with it. I like my men like I like my coffee; to go. That is, until the most boring job in the universe goes horribly wrong and I'm snatched from my ship by a seven-foot alien. He's huge, he's purple, and he's ripped as hell. I'm sure I'm a dead man. Only it turns out he doesn't want to kill me. What he wants is far worse.

Meet Ophelia Hart. Lover of classic literature and unicorns. An orphan with nobody in her corner—no family, no friends. But it’s her loneliness that fuels her life’s ambition to become a social worker and help the forgotten children just like her. For a foster kid with only slightly above-average grades, it feels like a pipe dream. Except it seems that someone is looking out for Ophelia after all. When an unexpected opportunity to attend Montridge University arises, she thinks her life is finally taking a turn for the better.

A memoir of service by the American ambassador who was on the diplomatic front lines when Putin invaded Ukraine, Midnight in Moscow is the first behind-the-scenes account of how U.S.-Russia relations hit their nadir—and a playbook for our unfolding confrontation. For weeks before Russia’s...

For Gideon Locke, that curse has haunted his family for generations. Branded a jinx since boyhood, he’s retreated into the quiet sanctuary of his repair shop, The Clockwork Owl, determined to keep his bad luck from touching anyone else. Better to live alone than risk destroying anyone else’s life. Sabrina Moreau has her own burden: an irresistible compulsion to rescue broken things. From cracked teacups to tarnished silver, her antique shop, Bits & Pieces, is a refuge for forgotten treasures, but nothing has ever called to her quite like Gideon does.

Meteorologist Zoe Parker put Everlasting in her rearview mirror as soon as she had her college degree in hand. But when Sapphire, her eccentric great-aunt, takes a tumble down the stairs in her lighthouse home, Zoe returns to the tiny fishing hamlet to look after her. Zoe has barely crossed the county line when strange things start happening with the weather, and she discovers Sapphire’s fall was no accident. Someone is searching the lighthouse but Sapphire has no idea what they’re looking for.

This audiobook is a compilation of sightings, encounters, and evidential findings as they pertain to Bigfoot in North America, and those who have encountered them.

I am told my union to the crowned prince will determine the fate of the kingdom, but it isn’t my betrothed who haunts my dreams. It’s the half-breed prince who stands at his side. He is darkness and sin, and when he whispers promises of wickedness in my ear, I crave a man who I can’t have. Every thought I have is treasonous. The way my hands ache to touch him deceitful. Even my dreams make me a traitor to the kingdom I am sworn to protect. But when the kingdom is attacked, I am forced to make choices I’m not prepared for.

At eight, he gave me roses. At fifteen, he gave me butterflies, and at seventeen, he gave me sanctuary. I wasn't a damsel in distress. He wasn't Prince Charming waiting to whisk me off my feet. We didn't meet by chance. He's been part of my life for years, and for most of that time, I've been under his spell.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Lost to the Moon and experience the compelling world of The Mate Games: Pestilence.

There are few people Nero Wolfe respects, and Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette is one of them. So when Cohen asks for a favor, the famously brilliant - and notoriously lazy - detective is inclined to listen. According to Cohen, someone wants to kill the Gazette’s gossip columnist, Cameron Clay. Death threats are a regular hazard for Clay, who’s hurled insults and accusations at every boldfaced name in the five boroughs. But the latest threats have carried a more sinister tone.

I didn't know Jacob Gray was my professor when I fell into his lap on the plane. All it took was a devastatingly gorgeous man twice my age to break all my rules. To teach me how to let go. How to surrender. How to submit. But then I learn Jacob isn't who I think he is. And it turns out our...

Brought to you by Penguin. A poetic and intimate essay collection on the lives of plants and their entanglement with our human worlds A seed slips beyond a garden wall. A seaweed drifts through an ocean. A tree is planted on a shifting border. A shrub is uprooted from its culture and its land...